Microsoft Exchange 2013

To offer an enhanced solution, standalone Cove Data Protection (Cove) has replaced Backup & Recovery. Where Backup & Recovery has been enabled and continues to be so for devices, the options presented here are still available.

Where Backup & Recovery options are not present on your N-sight RMM dashboard, this means you will now need to use Cove.

To start a 30-day free trial of Cove, click the app switcher in the Product bar, and select Cove Data Protection (Cove).

The Exchange Management Console is no longer available in Microsoft Exchange 2013, rather the Exchange Admin Center or PowerShell is used to mount and dismount databases.

Access the Exchange Admin Centre

As the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) is now a web-based management console, the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) virtual directory URL is used to access the console from a web browser and will look similar to the following:

  •    Internal URL: https://<CASServerName>/ecp
  •    External URL: https://<mail.domain.name>/ecp

If unsure of the Exchange Control Panel address, the Get-ECPVirtualDirectory PowerShell cmdlet can be used to display information on the internal and external URL. The following command returns the Exchange Control Panel  virtual directory name, internal and external URLs in a formatted list.

  • Get-ECPVirtualDirectory | Format-List Name,InternalURL,ExternalURL

Dismount the database

  1. Logon to the Exchange server as an administrator
  2. Open the Exchange Admin Center portal
  3. Navigate to Servers
  4. Select Databases
  5. Choose the Mailbox database and click the more (...) icon at the top of the page.
  6. From the drop down select Dismount database

PowerShell

Open a PowerShell command prompt and enter:

  • Dismount-Database -Identity <DatabaseIdParameter>

DatabaseIdParameter is the Identity parameter - GUID or distinguished name (DN) - representing a specific database

The Exchange Admin Center can be used to verify whether the database was successfully dismounted:

  1. Go to Servers > Databases and select the required mailbox
  2. Click the pen symbol and ensure the database status is Dismounted
  3. Make a copy of the current database - In line with best practice we suggest making a copy of the current database and logs before proceeding
  4. Navigate to the database file path (for example C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Mailbox\First Storage Group) then copy to a temporary location

Restore the database

  1. In the Backup Manager either Restore the data to the original location or select a different destination
  2. Where an alternative destination was selected the data must be copied from there to the database file path (for example C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Mailbox\First Storage Group)

Mount the database

Once the restore has successfully completed:

  1. Open the Exchange Admin Center portal
  2. Navigate to Servers
  3. Select Databases
  4. Choose the Mailbox database and click the more (...) icon at the top of the page.
  5. From the drop down select Mount database

PowerShell

Open a PowerShell command prompt and enter:

  • Mount-Database -Identity <DatabaseIdParameter>

DatabaseIdParameter is the Identity parameter - GUID or distinguished name (DN) - representing a specific database

After mounting the database the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet (which retrieves the properties for all mailbox database) can be used to ensure this was successful:

  • Get-MailboxDatabase -IncludePreExchange2013

The account used to run these PowerShell cmdlets requires the following permissions (Mailbox databases): Organization Management, Server Management

For more information on this process, see MS Exchange recovery.

Please note we are not responsible for the content of external sites.